The step-by-step plan for Bolivia

In this step you learn how you may come to live in Bolivia. The system is in the migration law, Ley 370 of 2013, and in the regulation that goes with it. It has three tiers:

• Permanencia transitoria. A short stay with a purpose, at most 180 days. A stay as a tourist belongs here too.
• Permanencia temporal. A temporary stay of one, two or three years. The law names four purposes: study, work, health and family.
• Permanencia definitiva. Permanent residence, to apply for after at least three years.

You apply for your permanencia at the DIGEMIG, the Dirección General de Migración. You do that in Bolivia itself. With a Dutch passport you need no visa to enter as a tourist, and as a tourist you're in the country for at most 90 days a year. According to the regulation you may switch from that stay to a permanencia for work, family, study or health.

What stands out: a pension visa with a fixed income amount, as Colombia and Panama have, isn't in the law. Whoever wants to live off their pension in Bolivia reads step 2.2.

Not retired yet? Whoever is going to work in Bolivia, for an employer or for themselves, has the clearest route: the permanencia temporal for work. Whoever has a Bolivian partner or family in Bolivia goes through the permanencia for family.

In this step you see what emigrating to Bolivia does to your tax, your AOW and your healthcare.

The tax. The Netherlands and Bolivia have no tax treaty. Bolivia isn't in the Belastingdienst table and isn't on the NederlandWereldwijd list. Without a treaty the Netherlands keeps taxing your AOW, your pension and your annuity. How that works out is in steps 3.2 and 3.3.

The AOW. The Netherlands and Bolivia did sign a social security treaty in 2005. But according to the treaty database that treaty won't enter into force. So Bolivia isn't among the 36 countries the full AOW goes to. The AOW does go along, but up to the married rate. For a couple nothing changes. Whoever goes alone drops from seventy to fifty percent of the minimum wage.

Healthcare. Bolivia isn't on the list of treaty countries for healthcare. So there's no CAK, and your Dutch basic insurance stops when you deregister. Against that stands something: under article 5 of Ley 475, as amended by Ley 1152, foreigners from 60 who aren't insured through an employer get free care in the public health system. See step 3.1.

Your AOW build-up stops. Whoever lives outside the Netherlands is usually no longer insured. Each year until your AOW age then costs 2 percent of your later AOW. You can insure yourself voluntarily with the SVB. The application has to be in within one year.

In this step you choose where you want to live. Bolivia is big, and the differences are big. La Paz, El Alto, Oruro and Potosí lie high on the Altiplano. Cochabamba, Sucre and Tarija lie in the valleys, Santa Cruz in the lowlands. NederlandWereldwijd warns of altitude sickness in the areas above 3,000 metres.

At every place, look at three things:

• The altitude and your health. If you have heart or lung complaints, discuss the altitude with your doctor first. Live for a few weeks in the place you choose.
• Healthcare. At every place, ask where the nearest hospital is, and where the neighbourhood health centre is.
• The offices. You arrange your permanencia at a DIGEMIG office, your cédula at the SEGIP. Ask in advance where those offices are near you.

Mind the border too. Within fifty kilometres of the border you may not own land or a house as a foreigner. See step 5.6.

In this step you see what the move is going to cost you. On the application side Bolivia is affordable. A visa de objeto determinado costs 100 dollars at the embassy in The Hague. The cédula de extranjero costs 600 bolivianos, about 46 euros. You ask for the fees of the DIGEMIG itself at the office or the embassy.

The money sits in three other items:

• The health policy that replaces the CAK, certainly if you're under sixty.
• The move to a country without a sea: your shipment goes through a port in a neighbouring country and then overland.
• The car, because a passenger car older than one year, counted from the model year, may not enter Bolivia.

Reckon with the exchange rate too. Since April 2026 Bolivia has had a flexible rate. On 15 October 2026 a dollar was 11.68 bolivianos. Your income comes in euros, life runs in bolivianos.

In this conversation you decide together whether Bolivia fits, and when. With this country come three things you need to see together.

• The AOW. The drop to the married rate only affects whoever goes alone. If one of you dies, the other becomes single. Even then it stays the lower AOW for as long as you live in Bolivia.
• The language. At the offices, the bank and the doctor everything goes in Spanish. Agree who's going to learn Spanish, and how.
• The distance. Family and grandchildren in the Netherlands are no longer a quick visit away. Agree how often you'll come back. Note: with a permanencia temporal you may be outside Bolivia for at most 90 days a year without permission. See step 5.2.

Choose the day you want to leave. The plan counts back from that date: when the papers from the Netherlands need to be in, when you apply for the visa at the embassy and when you deregister.

Count in three clocks. A visa de objeto determinado is valid for thirty days. As a tourist you have at most ninety days a year to apply for your permanencia. And after the DIGEMIG's decision you have 25 working days for your cédula at the SEGIP.